Huckaby: They all grow up too fast

Posted: Sunday, September 17, 2006

Darrell

Huckaby

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I knew something was fishy Sunday morning as soon as I stumbled into the kitchen, looking for that first cup of coffee. My lovely wife, Lisa, already was up - and lifting a pan of hot homemade biscuits out of the oven. The last time she cooked biscuits for breakfast, Ronald Reagan was president.

I immediately ran outside to give her car a once over, but there were no dents. Next I checked all the closets, but look as hard as I might, I could find no evidence of a shopping spree. Nonetheless, my suspicions were duly aroused - and for good reason. She hit me with it while I was spreading muscadine jelly onto my third buttered biscuit - or maybe it was my fourth.

Less than eight hours after living through the ecstasy of shutting out the Evil Cock-coaching Genius Steve Spurrier, I suffered through the agony of learning that my youngest daughter - my baby girl, for goodness sakes - is going to the homecoming dance at her school. With a boy. And I was paying for the dress.

It would take a lot more than biscuits for breakfast to make that news palatable. There are certain things you are just never prepared for, and this was one of them.

This wasn't my first rodeo, understand. I have an older daughter and an older son. We've done the first date thing and the prom and the after-prom party. We've gotten our driver's licenses and wept over breakups and lost loves, and we've even done the homecoming dance and the all-night lake-house party and graduation and moving to college and - well, short of planning a wedding (or, heaven forbid, suffering through a divorce) we've been there, done that, got the shirt and the whole nine yards.

But this is different. I never once considered that my baby daughter would grow up and want to go to a dance with a grubby old boy. It seems like only last week that she thought they all had cooties. I want those days back!

Those of you who have multiple offspring know that they are all different. And so it is with my three children. Jamie, our oldest, was born grown and is way more mature than I will ever be. Our son, Jackson, is a typical middle child and could care less if the Sun comes up tomorrow.

And Jenna, the baby, has always been a free spirit, marching to the beat of her own drummer. Always a thrill-seeker, Jenna was putting lifts in her shoes so she could fool the Disney people and ride the giant roller coasters when she was way shorter than the dwarf's hand on those little signs. For a couple of years, I was certain she would grow up to be a punk rocker - and this was when she was about 8.

After a monthlong road trip that included a wide swing through cowboy country, she decided she wanted to be a cowgirl instead of a punk rocker, so for several years we rode horses and ran around barrels and, well, you get the picture.

And now Jenna is a splendid pianist and twirls a flag in the high school band and has the heart of an angel and studies the Bible more intently than Billy Graham. Of course, I knew she was growing up and but - not the homecoming dance! I'm just not ready for that!

And, like I said, the biscuits didn't really make things better.

But you ought to see how pretty she looks in her new dress. You don't want to know what it costs - and neither do I - but you ought to see how pretty she looks.

And the young man who will be her escort? I promised Jenna I wouldn't publish his name but I will tell you this - he's the bravest kid in the 10th grade.

Pardon me while I butter another biscuit - and cry for an hour or so.

 Darrell Huckaby is an educator, author and public speaker. Contact him at www.darrellhuckaby.net.